SOLVED (not really): Alarm Motion Sensors Won’t Stay Off

Indy Mike

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I hope at least a few others with similar frustrations find this helpful. I had a call with a Ford engineer today, and he explained why I cannot keep the interior motion sensors turned off.

TL/DR: It is NOT a bug. Just poor design. But maybe a design that will be improved in the future.

First, the issue: my kids or dog frequently set off the car alarm when they get into the car before I do, or if I step out of the car to run into the store, commence a public charge, etc. You can temporarily avoid that by enabling “ask on exit” to manually deactivate the sensors every time you turn off the car [update: apparently even this doesn’t work consistently according to posts below] but that’s a little annoying. So I had hoped to permanently disable the motion sensors in the menu. Under Setting > Vehicle > Alarm you can turn Motion Sensors On or Off. But if you toggle them to Off, they still revert back to On each time you restart the car.

I thought this was a bug. It is not. It is just poor design. Or, to be more specific, old design that doesn’t take into account newer functionality. Here’s what I mean….

When the engineer took my issue back to the team, they didn’t understand what I was doing. They said (paraphrasing): “Why is this an issue? The motion sensors are only active when the car is locked. So how are people getting into the car before him? And why is he locking kids / pets in the car?”

Ok, put aside that sometimes you might want to lock your kids / pets in the car - the engineer explained that my issue is PAAK and the “walk away lock” feature. The car unlocks when I’m close by, allowing my kids to get in, and locks when I walk away, with my kids still in the car. And then the alarm activates. The motion sensors were not designed to be permanently disabled because, back before PAAK and the “walk away lock” functionality, it wasn’t nearly as much of an issue.

He said the solution was to disable the “walk away lock” feature, and either don’t lock the car when kids or pets are inside, or manually disable the sensors each time I do leave them inside.

Ok. So first I agreed with the engineer on his diagnosis and conceded that this was deliberate design and not a bug. But I then explained that it is poor design for several reasons:
  1. It’s confusing. If you cannot permanently disable the motion sensors, why even include that toggle 5 taps deep into the menu? Nobody wants to go that deep into the menu every time (and I understand you don’t have to if you enable “ask on exit” but that doesn’t eliminate the confusion of the motion sensor toggle deep in the menus).
  2. There are rare instances where you will want to lock kids / pets briefly inside the car.
  3. The “ask on exit” is not a suitable workaround because it is cumbersome having to engage with that every time you turn off your car.
  4. If your car is locked with the windows down, such as possibly in the garage, you can easily set off the motion sensors just by walking too closely to the car.
  5. Disabling “walk away lock” is not a viable workaround because that is a very useful feature (most of the time)!
So I suggested a couple of future functionalities to resolve the issue:
  1. Allow the motion sensors to be permanently disabled, and/or
  2. Allow “safe zones” to be set, such as a home garage, where walk away lock does not trigger (this is a feature already included in the Super Poll).
He agreed with my points, and seemed particularly enthused about the safe zone solution.

So good news and bad news. Bad news is this isn’t a bug that will be fixed anytime soon. Good news is that I’m guessing we’ll eventually get a good workaround with a future enhancement of adding safe zones.
Thanks for sharing that. Leaving kids and dogs in an unlocked car for a very brief time, not a good idea. A wife and 91 year old father-in-law, I’m ok with that. I guess I’ll have to take our 4# Yorkie into the store with me. She will not be a happy dog if she doesn’t get to ride along. But seriously, thanks for sharing. At least we now know why.
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ERIC8585

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Seems like the engineers aren't aware the ask on exit doesn't disable the sensors for a lot of people.
 

pumasalad

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Draw is only negligible if it doesn't have to condition the cabin
...draw is not really a concern when it's a trip to my local grocery store and maybe the post office. that's a total of 6 miles. When I get home I plug it back in anyway. ABC and all that. Keeping the motion sensors off and a/c or heat on is much more important to me.
 


Awmustang

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Why are there motion sensors inside the car? If the car is locked and someone breaks in the alarm should sound. Are they concerned someone can break in/out from the inside?
The motion sensors are there to trigger in the event of a "smash and grab" theft. The vast majority of factory alarms, just monitor if the doors are opened. If someone smashes a window and reaches in to the car without unlocking or opening a door, the alarm will never trigger (and trust me the thieves know this). Sometimes they will even crawl in through the window and rummage around inside the car. The interior motion sensors would be able to catch this type of break in.
 

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Alarm and double honking is a pain in the ass and a deal breaker if the newest software (roof fix + software update) doesn't fix it.

I'm using paak, sitting in the drivers seat waiting for my partner who went in to buy some stuff from the store. Car is off. See him getting back, without thinking I reach over and open the passenger door for him. And the alarm goes off.

Or if we stop for him to pick up something quick. If I don't stop the car before he gets out, it will double honk. Doesn't matter I'm sitting still wearing my seat belt. My car is double honking to inform me the passenger left the car while it's on and standing still.

Same with passenger getting in the car. If I stop to pick up someone waiting by the road, it will double honk if I don't stop the car before they open the door and get in. So even when I'm stopping for 30 secs to pick someone up, I need to turn the car off.

I don't know how common these issues are in newer cars as this is my first new car. But if these things are gonna be pretty common problems, I think I'll stick with buying older cars that don't have the technology for these bothersome issues to occur. Car alarm going off when I'm in or near the car with my paak shouldn't happen

I just want to be able to open and close, start or stop my car whenever I want without thinking "I need to hurry turning the car off beofre my partner gets out". or "oh he came back from the store too fast, I need to make sure to let him in the car the exact right way so the alarm doesn't trigger"
I haven't had these happen. One, if you stop for just a few minutes and the driver stays in the car, leave it turned "on". As long as you don't remove the key/phone from the car, it should not double honk. Also, when picking up my kids from school events, I pull to the curb, put it in park, and they get in. No double honk, ever.
 

JamesInWeston

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My 2017 Chev Bolt exhibited this behavior, except it was not triggered by a motion sensor, just a door opening (by someone inside the car). Even then I would have liked to have the option to turn off alarm on door open when I locked my car with my wife or whomever remained inside. I eventually had wife/whomever manually lock after I left the car. This would be challenging (and way too entertaining) with dog or little kids. I suppose it would depend on the breed of dog ?
 

Logal727

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Everyone knows about locking the car with the Door keypad 7-8 9-0 combo right? You can leave your phone or fob in the car too and it will lock.
 

ERIC8585

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My car is going back next week for them to try to figure this out again.
 

aevans17

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Has anyone heard back from Ford/the dealer about this issue?

We have the same issue after getting our Premium AWD back from the dealer after Windshield/Sunroof recall + latest updates. This wasn't an issue before the update.

From my limited testing, turning the car off and locking the door with the key fob double click re-enables the motion alarm.

Locking the door with the 2 bottom buttons on the door access pad allows the motion sensors to stay off. Not sure if the perimeter alarm is enabled or not in this case.

Have also verified that there is nothing in the car that can be seen on Ring Camera when the motion alarm goes off. This doesn't mean that small gnat isn't inside the car causing the motion alarm to go off.
 

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Has anyone heard back from Ford/the dealer about this issue?

We have the same issue after getting our Premium AWD back from the dealer after Windshield/Sunroof recall + latest updates. This wasn't an issue before the update.

From my limited testing, turning the car off and locking the door with the key fob double click re-enables the motion alarm.

Locking the door with the 2 bottom buttons on the door access pad allows the motion sensors to stay off. Not sure if the perimeter alarm is enabled or not in this case.

Have also verified that there is nothing in the car that can be seen on Ring Camera when the motion alarm goes off. This doesn't mean that small gnat isn't inside the car causing the motion alarm to go off.
Don't expect to hear anything from Ford. It's pretty obvious that even though they claim to monitor this forum and social media their willingness to communicate back to us via social media is non-existent. Our best bet is to complain to our dealers and get something on the record. Ford might start to care once their problems-per-100-vehicles average goes up and their reliability ratings for their EVs starts to tank. Being a pain the ass to our dealer, who will then bark up the chain, appears to be the best route to go. I've been scheduling service appointments to get my complaints reviewed and logged. I think that everyone else should do the same.
 

Ford Motor Company

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Has anyone heard back from Ford/the dealer about this issue?

We have the same issue after getting our Premium AWD back from the dealer after Windshield/Sunroof recall + latest updates. This wasn't an issue before the update.

From my limited testing, turning the car off and locking the door with the key fob double click re-enables the motion alarm.

Locking the door with the 2 bottom buttons on the door access pad allows the motion sensors to stay off. Not sure if the perimeter alarm is enabled or not in this case.

Have also verified that there is nothing in the car that can be seen on Ring Camera when the motion alarm goes off. This doesn't mean that small gnat isn't inside the car causing the motion alarm to go off.
Hi there! This doesn't sound like an experience we want you to have with your Mach-E. Could you please send us a PM with your VIN and the name and location of your Ford dealer? I'd be happy to look into this concern on my end.
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